Your Computer and Favorite Programs

We have a thread about smartphones and apps, so why not one on computers and programs?

Computers
Laptop: Thinkpad X201. 2.54 GHz processor (i5 540m), 4GB RAM, 160GB HDD, running Linux Mint.
Desktop: 3.0 GHz processor (Phenom II X4), 4GB RAM, Radeon 4870 video card, 1.5TB HDD, running Windows Server. It's about three years old now. I mean, it's 4000-series old.


Now the interesting part...

Programs I cannot live without, Linux edition

Firefox - I know many have migrated to Chrome, but I like the familiarity of Firefox.
Exaile - music player. Crucially, it supports sort-by-directory-structure. I refuse to install a music player without that functionality.
Mplayer2 - video player. Supports any file format I throw at it, including h.264 hi10p.
Pidgin - chatting.
TexWorks - LaTeX editor. If I'm not editing text in a text editor, which is....
Kate / Vim - text editor. I'm torn between the two. Kate has proper code folding, while Vim doesn't; Vim has column mode, while Kate's column mode is clunky. In practice, I tend to use Kate under its Vim emulator mode.
Unison - folder sync. I sync a 4gb flash drive to my /home/Integral/docs folder.
Transmission - Torrent client. It's the default and good enough for me.
Stata - statistical package of choice. Costs money, worth the investment.
Matlab - it's Matlab. However, Octave works reasonably well for most of my needs.


Programs, Windows edition.

Firefox - internet.
foobar2000 - music. Lightweight, infinitely customizable, and supports sort-by-directory-structure.
Media Player Classic Homecinema - media player.
Pidgin - chatting
TexWorks - LaTeX editor, when I'm not using...
Notepad++ - the single best text editor I know of.
Microsoft SyncToy - file sync. Works surprisingly well.
utorrent - torrent client.
Steam - gaming.
Filezilla Server - for FTP.
Skype - more chat. Invaluable for gaming.

I use the Windows computer mostly for gaming / media, the laptop for "work."

edit:
Games! (in rough order of use)
League of Legends
Civ III
Touhou
...various others...

 

Computers:
Laptop 1: HP Pavilion dv6815m laptop, 1 GB NVIDIA Geforce Go 7150m graphics, 2 GHz AMD Turion 64 Mobile Tech TL-60 processor, 3 GB RAM, Windows Vista Home Premium. Got in 2008.
Laptop 2: HP HDX 16-1375DX Premium Notebook PC, NVIDIA GeForce GT 130M graphics, 1 GB shared, 2.26 GHz Intel Centrino 2x core Processor, 4 GB RAM, Windows 7 Professional 64 bit (Original OS: Win Vista Home Premium 64 bit). Got in 2009.

Favorite Programs:
Celestia 1.6.1
Sims 3 w/expasions (At this point, the game has gotten ridiculous, don't play it much anymore.)
Sims 2, all expansions (Much better than Sims 3. Plus weather control abilities. )
Gimp
Paint Shop Pro 9.0
Firefox
Civ 4 BTS 3.19
Notepad2
Audacity
Windows Media Player
AstroSynthesis 2.0 Trial

 

Good idea!

Computer
Laptop; Dell Inspiron 15R, Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2330M CPU at 2.20 GHz, 6 GB of RAM, running Windows 7

Programs

Google Chrome; Browser, I love its simplicity and speed.
iTunes; My main music player.
Spotify; I use this to share music or listen to what my friends are listening to, also to discover music of bands that I may only have one album of.
Google Talk; I use it for email alerts as well as letting me know who's online.
GIMP; Picture editing software. Quite useful.
Notepad++; Highly recommend it. I use it for multiple things.
Steam; Only one game, but saving it for the future.
Audacity; So far, I've only used it to create ringtones, but that might change in the future.
Skype; Rarely use it.
Facebook Messenger; I use it only if I would like chat open and not the complete thing distracting me.

Games
Civilization 4 BTS
Civilization 3
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Chrome (Various flash games)

 

Desktop computer:
HP Pavilion p6310y PC, AMD Athlon II X4 630 Processor, 6.0GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9100, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

Programs:
CCleaner, Defraggler, VLC Media Player, Gimp, IrfanView, blah, blah, blah.

Games:
Battle for Wesnoth
Battlefield 1942
Battlefield 2
Call of Duty + United Offensive
Call of Duty 2
Wouldn't you like to know?
Hoyle Board+Card Games 2005
Mount and Blade: Warband
Madden NFL 08
Madden NFL 04
Medal of Honor Pacific Assault
NCAA Football 99
NHL 07
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07.
Sports Car GT
Torino 2006

 

Desktop: Pentium D 2.80GHz, 3.0GB RAM, Intel 82945G Chipset (128MB), Windows XP Professional (SP3, 32-bit)

Programs:

Google Chrome - Internet.
Firefox - Backup internet.
iTunes - Music Player.
Paint.NET (with Madjik addons) - Good paint program.
Microsoft Office 2003 - With Access and Excel. Better than 2007 and 2010 IMO.
RobotC - For high-school robot programming.
LEd - Standard free LATEX editor.
Jmol - Standard molecular viewer.
Finale 2008 - Music notation software, very good.
Notepad - Standard.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Good, free anti-virus.
LeafChat - IRC.
Ventrilo - Standard voice communications.
Dropbox - Free inter-user file sharing.
LogMein Hamachi - Standard client-server communications.

Games:

Civ4 BTS - Good game, most played.
Warcraft III, Frozen Throne - Also good, customizable.
League of Legends - Used to play a lot, now not so much.
Silkroad Online - Also used to play, not anymore.
Dice Wars/KDice (Online) - Good games, involve some strategy and quick to play.
Minecraft - It's pretty good.
Desktop Dungeons - Good, difficult, free, quick game.

 

Oh, I forgot: my Office is MS Office XP Pro 2002. Best Excel.

Office 2007/2010 makes me physically ill.

 

Man I used to nerd out so hard to computer specs. I'd look at the back page of the paper and check out the Fry's Electronics Ads back in the dot-com era, like 12 years old and be like drooling over pentium 3s. I was so excited with my first self-bought computer in 2002, I knew all the specs.

Now?
I dunno, I have a 3 year old Macbook Pro :shrug:

The only software I need is Chrome and Apple Logic to make some choons. I just found out I can impress girls by opening up Garage Band on their Macbooks and using the keyboard to play chords on the virtual piano. Damn someone get a dehumidifier.

 

Office 2007/2010 is waaaaay better... Has so many more and better functions, has awesome conditional formatting, easier data management, larger spreadsheets, I could go on but honestly I'd never want to go back to 2003.

I can't think of a single reason to use 2003 instead of 2007 or 2010.

 

True story . My computer is not hooked up to the Internet ( I do this on an I pad) . When Civ 4 came out I went to the computer store , bought a copy and said "I want the fastest , best computer and associated game cards and stuff that will allow me to play this game"

All these years later I have never once used it for any other purpose other than to burn some CD's

 

Desktop Computer:
2.2 (overclocked to 3.0) Dual Core Intel Processor, ATI Radeon HD 5670 Graphics Card, 4 GB of RAM

Programs:
Mozilla Firefox - Internet browsing
Microsoft Office 2010 - Work
µTorrent - I only download freeware
VLC Media Player - Movies
Windows Media Player - Music
Gimp - Drawing

Games:
Crusader Kings II
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3
World of Warcraft
Minecraft
SKYRIM

 

1. More fine-tuned control of charting in 2003, though perhaps I'm just missing the functionality in 2007.
2. Vertical screen space.

But I'm biased.

The conditional formatting in 2007 is neat and a plus, I admit. What specific data management tools are you thinking of?

 

I probably used the wrong phrase, but automatic duplicate removal and the "Tables" feature is really cool. The changes to the UI of Pivot Tables also makes it easier to access more advanced calculation features, to change the way data is shown, etc.

There's nothing about charts in 2003 that isn't also in 2007, AFAIK, and I don't really miss the screen space. You can collapse the ribbon anyway, and just use keyboard shortcuts (they're all the same as 2003) and the Quick Toolbar (i.e. the window frame thing) instead, and have a lot more vertical space.

Besides, I'd rather see 41 rows out of 1,000,000 than see 50 rows out of 65,000

 

I almost forgot my prized possessions: Nascar Heat, Nascar Legends, and Nascar Racing 4. Also, DosBox, which I use to play Prince of Persia, Duke Nukem, Blue Force, etc.

 

I have a 7 year-old desktop: Dual-core 2.8 Ghz, 4GB RAM, Win7, ~20TB space, I really need to upgrade this.
And whatever newish Macbook Pro I convince my employer to supply me with.

I have a bunch of programs, mostly the best free options available. If you're using something else, it's probably worse than whatever I'm using.

Programs I have open 100% of the time: Opera, Chrome, IE/Safari, Outlook, mIRC, Windows Live Messenger, Skype, foobar2000, Zune, utorrent, Keepass, Firefox, Notepad++, OneNote, VistaSwitcher

Programs worth paying for on Windows: AdMuncher, mIRC, CoreAVC, MS Office.

Programs worth paying for on Mac OS: Steermouse.

Learning to use R instead of Stata is worth the investment.

I didn't use MS Office before 2007, it sucked too much before that.

 

Acer Aspire 5742G
Intel Core i3-370M 2.40 GHz
4 GB RAM
GeForce GT 420M
500 GB HDD
Windows 7 Home Premium

CORE programs:
Media Player Classic Home Cinema (I think it's the best one, even if the playlisting is not perfect)
Opera (mainly due to being used to its interface)
Notepad++ (found it somewhat recently - very nice)
Skype (obvious)
utorrent (as good as any other, I think - not using too much)
OLD Notepad & OLD Paint (I like the old interface in both, while the functions I need, are there already)
OpenOffice (I have MS too, but this is as good, while somewhat easier)
Avira (good, reliable, program-friendly unlike Kasperky, simply FREE - or easy to find FREE keys )

GAMES:
Civilization 1-4!!! (BTS is my current fav, with civ1/2 being just behind, for both nostalgia and gameplay; civ3 sucks, sorry )
All the others (who cares, when I can play Civ )

 

AMD Phenom II X4 (quadcore) processor
8 GB of RAM
Nvidia GTS 250 video card
Windows 7 64 bit OS

favorite programs:
Windows 7
FireFox


Now if you consider a computer game a program, in that case my favorite programs also go to Steam/Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim Dragon Age, Civilization 4, The Witcher 2, and various other games like SMAC, and other older games like BG1 and BG2.

 

Living Room PC/HTPC: i5-2400, 6850, ASRock Mini-ITX mobo with 8GB RAM, in a silver Lian Li Q11 mini-itx that I love. Super quiet, wireless everything, hooked up to my plasma.

Home Office PC: My ancient 6 year old Core2Duo E6600 on an ASUS p5B-E mobo, in a Lian Li something or other, can't remember. Big minimalist black monolith case-thing.

Favorite programs: Firefox, Chrome, Office 2007, OpenOffice at home. Also a fan of Google Docs for its ease of sharing data with others. VLC Player, since Windows Media Player does not play nice with my receiver for some reason. That's it.

 

I recently built a computer, but I haven't really used it to its full potential. I'm sure I've had some shorter in-between-turn times in Civ because of it, but I haven't really done anything I couldn't have with my 2007 laptop. I don't think I've ever legitimately used more than 3 GB of RAM out of its 8 GB at once, I know I haven't seriously taxed the GPU, and while I've stressed one core of the CPU, the only thing all four have been busy with is donating CPU cycles for science, which is does excel at compared to my laptop. So, I may be becoming part of the standard-works-fairly-well crowd. Even so, I'm glad I built the computer instead of buying it pre-built.

The monitor I bought for it has been the best part practically speaking. So much better resolution, and so much better watching movies from a couch across the room than on a 15-inch screen.

I do like my laptop, though. It's a Dell Inspiron from 2007, when they were actually build well, and it's durability and performance in an unassuming chassis are some of my favorite aspects. I could see where a lighter laptop could be nice, but don't plan to replace it anytime soon, and don't expect it to stop working anytime soon, either.

Programs... Opera, Google Voice plugin, Adobe Flash plugin, KeePass password safe, Notepad++, Songbird... those are the ones I use the most that would require a readjustment if they suddenly vanished. And I suppose my OS of choice, Windows XP - I've used Windows 7 at work long enough that I've grown used to its annoyances, but that still doesn't mean I like them. I'll probably stick with XP for at least two more years.

Specs, for those who really care:

Spoiler :

Desktop
- Core i5 2500k. Overclocked by 100 MHz for the sake of being overclocked. Might do so halfway seriously in the future. Super-powerful.
- ATI 6870, with 1 GB RAM. Probably overpowered for what I need; probably won't need to be replaced for a long time.
- 8 GB DDR3, 1600 MHz. Hardly more expensive than 4 GB. Hardly ever make use of more than 4 GB.
- 2 TB WD HDD, with identical backup. Cheap mass storage. Cheaper when I bought it than now. Less than 25% utilized, but that will probably change with time.
- Intel 80 GB SSD. Fast for some things. Probably not worth it cost:benefit-wise. Might have been if it had been large enough to store everything at a similar price. Does make my laptop seem to boot slowly, but I rarely actually reboot anyway.
- The cheapest DVD burner I could buy. Debated Blu-Ray, decided against it in the end.
- A non-beige case that's aimed for practicality, quietness, and looking decent without being flashy, transparent, or uber-businesslike.
- XP x64 as only OS. So far I haven't run into major compatibility issues, so I probably won't go back to 32-bit. And Windows 7 only has a chance as a dual-boot, should some killer games come out for it. Until then, it's friendly, stay-out-of-the-way-and-not-annoy-me XP.

Laptop
- Core 2 Duo T7500. Probably not worth the price increase over the T7300 economically, but I actually used all of its power, so I don't regret that.
- GeForce 8600M GT. Thought it would fail, but it never did, and it's been a good card, so I'm happy with it.
- 4 GB DDR2 RAM. Could upgrade to 6 GB, but not without a reinstall, and 4 is almost always enough.
- 320 GB hard drive, with backup with 50% of the capacity. Was getting kind of short on space before I built my desktop, and having a half-size backup was inconvenient.
- DVD burner. Tray-loading.
- Wireless N WiFi card. Never really used anything beyond Wireless G capacity, though. And I've used almost entirely wired Internet for the past year.
- XP 32-bit as OS. Switched from Vista after about 6 months; I consider that a definite upgrade.
- Impressive battery life for a 2007 laptop that weighs 7 pounds. 3.5 to 4 hours with reasonable settings. 5.5 to 6 if going far-out on the power-saving measures. Not much compared to a Kindle, but I'll take it.

 

Plastic Macbook. I don't know what's in it but I can browse the web, watch movies, listen to music, and play games so I'm happy.

 

Cross platform:
Firefox,Opera
git: revision control system
mendeley: scientific paper storage/database
keepass: password storage
dropbox: online file storage/sync

Linux laptop: Acer Extensa 5635Z
Emacs: Tex(t) editor
R: Statistics software
sagemath: Math software
irssi: irc client. Works well in putty

Windows desktop: Core 2 Duo 1,6Ghz, 4GB RAM, Radeon HD5700
Putty: ssh client
cygwin: linux on windows. I mostly use it for git and latex compiling
notepad++: tex(t) editor
Office 2010: Excell stuff